TY - JOUR
T1 - Topology of the conceptual network of language
AU - Motter, Adilson E.
AU - De Moura, Alessandro P S
AU - Lai, Ying-Cheng
AU - Dasgupta, Partha
PY - 2002/6/25
Y1 - 2002/6/25
N2 - We define two words in a language to be connected if they express similar concepts. The network of connections among the many thousands of words that make up a language is important not only for the study of the structure and evolution of languages, but also for cognitive science. We study this issue quantitatively, by mapping out the conceptual network of the English language, with the connections being defined by the entries in a Thesaurus dictionary. We find that this network presents a small-world structure, with an amazingly small average shortest path, and appears to exhibit an asymptotic scale-free feature with algebraic connectivity distribution.
AB - We define two words in a language to be connected if they express similar concepts. The network of connections among the many thousands of words that make up a language is important not only for the study of the structure and evolution of languages, but also for cognitive science. We study this issue quantitatively, by mapping out the conceptual network of the English language, with the connections being defined by the entries in a Thesaurus dictionary. We find that this network presents a small-world structure, with an amazingly small average shortest path, and appears to exhibit an asymptotic scale-free feature with algebraic connectivity distribution.
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U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevE.65.065102
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevE.65.065102
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:41349116699
SN - 1063-651X
VL - 65
JO - Physical Review E - Statistical Physics, Plasmas, Fluids, and Related Interdisciplinary Topics
JF - Physical Review E - Statistical Physics, Plasmas, Fluids, and Related Interdisciplinary Topics
IS - 6
ER -